Quote

The whole art of politics consists in directing rationally the irrationalities of men.

Reinhold Niebuhr

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Reinhold Niebuhr
Age: 78 †
Born: 1892
Born: June 21
Died: 1971
Died: June 1
Ethicist
Philosopher
Political Scientist
Theologian
University Teacher
Wright City
Missouri
Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr
Whole
Men
Rationally
Irrationality
Directing
Consists
Politics
Art

More quotes by Reinhold Niebuhr

Image
Reason is not the sole basis of moral virtue in man. His social impulses are more deeply rooted than his rational life.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Image
If you equate God's judgment with your judgment, you have a wrong religion.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Image
Our dreams of bringing the whole of human history under the control of the human will are ironically refuted by the fact that no group of idealists can easily move the pattern of history toward the desired goal of peace and justice. The recalcitrant forces in the historical drama have a power and persistence beyond our reckoning.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Image
I think there is and ultimate answer in a true religious faith, but it doesn't give you any immediate answers, it doesn't.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Image
The significance of the law of love is precisely that it is not just another law, but a law which transcends all law.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Image
Self-righteousness is the inevitable fruit of simple moral judgments.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Image
The will-to-live becomes the will-to-power.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Image
The Jews were the money-lenders of the Middle Ages so there's a stereotype of the slightly or more than slightly dishonest business man and this stereotype covers and obscures all the facts.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Image
There must be a realm of truth beyond political competence, that's why there must be a separation of churches, but if religion is bad and a bad religion is one that gives an ultimate sanctity to some particular cause.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Image
The sad duty of politics is to establish justice in a sinful world.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Image
Religion is so frequently a source of confusion in political life, and so frequently dangerous to democracy, precisely because it introduces absolutes into the realm of relative values.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Image
To be religious is not to feel, but to be.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Image
All men who live with any degree of serenity live by some assurance of grace.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Image
It is significant that it is as difficult to get charity out of piety as to get reasonableness out of rationalism.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Image
Original sin is that thing about man which makes him capable of conceiving of his own perfection and incapable of achieving it.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Image
A church has the right to set its own standards within its community. I don't think it has a right to prohibit birth control or to enforce upon a secular society its conception of divorce and the indissolubility of the marriage tie.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Image
The churches that are most obviously democratic are most obviously given to race prejudice. I mean the churches that have absolute congregational control.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Image
The cross symbolizes a cosmic as well as historic truth. Love conquers the world, but its victory is not an easy one.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Image
Whether the man is an atheist or a Christian, I would judge him by his fruits, and I have therefore many agnostic friends.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Image
That is the truth about man - that he has a curious kind of dignity, but also a curious kind of misery, and that these forms of agnosticism don't understand.
Reinhold Niebuhr